Despite the huge controversy surrounding the first film in 2004, Mel Gibson is planning to release a sequel of 'The Passion Of The Christ'. This time he'll be focusing on the events following the resurrection of Jesus, which ended the previous film, so we imagine it will be a lot less violent affair. Maybe.

Mel Gibson to write sequel to 'Passion'

Mel Gibson - who directed and co-wrote the original movie - will be teaming up with screenwriter Randall Wallace, with whom he worked on his 5-time Oscar winning flick 'Braveheart' in 1995. Wallace confirmed rumours of 'The Passion Of The Christ 2' just recently, though Gibson is yet reveal anything.

Wallace told The Hollywood Reporter that the project is 'too difficult to keep under wraps', and revealed that he and Gibson has started discussing a sequel while working on their new World War II film 'Hacksaw Ridge', which is released in November.

'I always wanted to tell this story', Wallace said of the resurrection. 'The Passion is the beginning and there's a lot more story to tell.' He also admits that the support the first film got from the evangelical community has had a huge impact on their decision to re-visit the Biblical legend. 'They kept telling us that they think a sequel will be even bigger.'

'The Passion Of The Christ' was indeed an incredible success, grossing $612 million worldwide against a relatively meagre $30 million budget. While it failed to scoop an award in any of the three categories it was nominated in at the Academy Awards, it still managed to smash records as the highest grossing religious film, the highest grossing non-English-language film and the highest grossing independent film of all time.

As popular as it was, it provoked a lot of controversy, mainly in regards to the excessively violent content. Gibson defended the brutality at the time, explaining that it was important to put across the extent of Jesus' sacrifice. It was also accused of having anti-Semitic content, tasteless depictions of the devil and not giving an accurate account of events as they are written in Scriptures.